1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automatic shift control apparatus and method for a manual transmission through release and engagement controls for at least one clutch interposed between an engine and the manual transmission and a shift control for the manual transmission.
2. Description of the Related Art
A Japanese Patent Application First Publication No. 2001-295898 published on Oct. 26, 2001 exemplifies a previously proposed automatic shift control apparatus for a manual transmission in which two clutches are installed for each group of shift stages divided into two groups, viz., a previously proposed manual transmission of a twin clutch type.
Another automatic shift control apparatus for a normally available manual transmission having a single clutch has been proposed. In each of these previously proposed automatic shift control apparatuses, when the gear shift occurs, the manual transmission is automatically shifted according to the release-and-engagement control for the clutch(es) and the shift control for the manual transmission in the same manner as a vehicle driver manipulates the manual transmission. Then, when the engagement of the clutch is carried out after the shift operation of the manual transmission, it is a common practice that an engagement force of the clutch is feedback controlled using a technique adopted in the automatic transmission in such a way that an effective gear ratio represented by a ratio between input and output revolution speeds of the transmission is changed from a previous gear ratio before the gear shift occurs to a gear ratio after the gear shift occurs with a predetermined time series variation.